


the brother

by bluebeholder



Series: the accidental epic [19]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Family Reunions, Fluff and Angst, Protective Tina Goldstein, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:18:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Back in London after all of his adventures, Newt musters up the courage to visit his brother Theseus. For someone like Newt, who's not afraid of anything, this should be easy--but what's more frightening than family?





	the brother

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everybody. :) Today we get inside the mind of Newt, meet Theseus, and...yeah. Have some fun, I really enjoy writing Theseus!

Newt straightens his coat again. He’s fussy and uncomfortable in his own skin today. It’s because he’s too used to spending time with people who aren’t judging him at every turn. They don’t care when he mucks up explanations for things or forgets to explain things at all. They don’t laugh, when he drops everything to mind an Occamy or rescue a Xicalcoatl from a zoo. But now…

“Newt,” Tina says gently. “Everything will be all right.”

“I know,” Newt says, looking up at the house. It’s a good, solid building, elegant and well-appointed—worth hundreds of Galleons, the kind of house that can only be got with old money and a solid career. “I only…”

Tina brushes a loose lock of hair from his forehead. “Worrying means you suffer twice, right?”

Newt takes a deep breath and straightens up as best he can. “Right,” he says. And he turns smartly and raps on the door with the Hippogriff-shaped knocker.

There’s a moment of looming silence, and then footsteps resound behind the door. It opens soundlessly inward to reveal a man of about Newt’s height, with hair just as curly and ten times as dark, and steel-gray eyes that make Newt flinch with their directness.

“Hello, Theseus,” he says softly, unable to look his brother in the eye.

“Merlin’s beard, is it really you?” Theseus sounds like the floor has dropped out from under him. “I thought you were never coming back to London!”

Newt flicks a glance at his brother, then away again. He can’t do this. He wants to just Apparate across the country and hide away with his creatures. “I wanted to see you,” he says, so quietly it’s almost inaudible. He can feel Tina hovering protectively, ready to hex Theseus if things go wrong. She doesn’t know why Newt is so nervous, but even so she won’t let him be hurt.

A beat of silence passes, and then Newt is very startled to find Theseus wrapping him up in a bear hug. “Newton Artemis Fido Scamander, you daft idiot, I missed you!”

Theseus hauls Tina and Newt inside. He kisses Tina’s hand and makes her laugh and for a second Newt thinks that he’s made a mistake, bringing her here. People always like Theseus better. But when Theseus pulls them into a comfortable room to sit, Tina sits down firmly next to Newt, holding his hand like she’s making a very blunt point. 

“Really, Newt, I didn’t expect you,” Theseus says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “I thought you’d be off globe-trotting for the rest of your life, being famous and trying to topple governments!”

“We didn’t try to topple a government,” Newt feels obliged to point out. 

Tina squeezes his hand. “You did run off with two Directors of Magical Security, one of whom was a wanted criminal. And a pair of outlaws in love. And…er, Credence. We did cause a bit of a fuss. A good fuss, but still.”

“I only wish you’d come and got me before having that adventure!” Theseus says heartily. He’s so loud. Newt is used to loud: Percival has a habit of raising his voice at the slightest provocation, Queenie laughs all the time, and of course there are plenty of creatures that roar and shriek and howl and thunder. But Theseus’ voice makes Newt feel small, makes him want to shrink down and hide.

“Newt had no idea I’d be asking him to smuggle people across the country in his suitcase when I wrote him,” Tina says. “And how do you know about all that, anyway? I thought it was hushed up.”

Theseus looks sly. “I may not be in the Ministry of Magic anymore, but I have friends.”

Newt tries to get himself together. This is his brother, for Darwin’s sake. “What have you been doing, since you left the Ministry?”

“Private security consulting, mostly,” Theseus says. He shrugs. “Might have been a decade ago, but people remember my soldier days.”

Can the man not go a whole conversation without bringing up the Great War? “Gringotts?” Newt asks, instead of asking his first-thought question.

“Once or twice,” Theseus says. “I’d thought about trying to hire you on, when they started talking about using a dragon for security, but no one could get in contact. You were somewhere in Africa.”

“They put a dragon in Gringotts?” Newt can feel his blood pressure rising. 

“That’s the other reason I didn’t write,” Theseus says to Tina. “Knew he’d get up in arms about it.”

Tina looks coldly at him. “And he’d be right to get up in arms. I’ve seen dragons. They don’t deserve to be locked up in a bank’s basement.” A bald-faced lie. Tina has never seen a dragon; she told Newt so herself. So she's...protecting him?

Theseus’ brows shoot up. “Newt, you picked a perfect woman.”

“I did,” Newt says, looking at Tina. He smiles at her, even if it feels a little crooked. She’s stuck by him since they met, through thick and thin. Newt has started to forget what life is like without her. 

“Thanks,” Tina says. 

“You were Director of Magical Security, weren’t you?” Theseus asks.

Tina nods. “For a couple of months, anyway.”

Newt lets Tina steer the conversation. He’s quite content to—to step back, before he makes a mess of all this again. He shouldn’t have got angry about the dragon. He can just nod, and smile, and think fixedly about the trouble the Niffler is probably getting up to in Jacob’s bakery. There are plenty of shiny things, there. It’ll be happy. Oh, how badly Newt wishes he were there right now. 

“You’re awfully quiet, Newt,” Theseus says suddenly. 

“Sorry, I was just thinking about—” Newt cuts himself off. Theseus doesn’t want to hear about odd things. “Never mind.”

Tina is giving him a look and Newt ignores it. He looks anywhere but at Theseus. “No, go on, I don’t mind,” Theseus says. “You’ve hardly said two words since you got here!”

“It really was nothing,” Newt says. He’s getting progressively quieter. The clinical part of him notes that in him this behavior is usually associated with an attempt to placate a creature capable of doing him serious harm. A soft voice, indirect gaze, and inoffensive posture are nearly universal gestures of appeasement and they’re exactly what Newt’s doing right now. He catalogues the behavior, studying himself as if he were an Onchú baring its neck, because if he doesn’t treat this clinically he’ll flee.

“Newt…” 

Theseus cuts Tina off with a sigh of frustration. “Let it go, Miss Goldstein,” he says. “This is just how Newt is. Though I’m sure you know that by now.”

Newt flinches. He’s gotten so good at managing this, at being himself so assertively that no one asks any questions, that he’s forgotten what it’s like to be afraid like this. Newt Scamander is a bold adventurer in a bright blue coat who fears nobody and nothing, who’ll challenge Grindelwald to a duel, shout down the ICW, face a raging dragon head-on, and kiss Tina Goldstein. Right now he’s not Newt Scamander. He’s Newton, Theseus’ odd and shameful little brother, who keeps beetles in his pocket and would rather sit by the pond speaking to the mute swans than play with other boys. 

“What exactly about you is scaring him?” Tina asks Theseus, hostile and sharp. Protective behavior. Baring her teeth at something she perceives to be a threat to what is hers. Newt loves her so dearly right then that he can hardly bear it. “Because this isn’t ‘just how Newt is’. He wasn’t like this until he decided to come here and meet you.”

“What?” Theseus’ voice is sharp with surprise and Newt tears his gaze off the floor to look at his brother. Theseus is sitting back, bolt upright, hackles raised. He’s not angry, though, he’s merely shocked. 

Tina scowls. Her voice is hard. “He was so nervous that he almost left at the door. Which is strange, because two years ago Newt stood next to me and dueled Grindelwald personally. And then broke every law in America to save his friends. And went around the world three times to write the best book on deadly magical creatures the world has ever seen. So would you like to explain to me exactly what about you is more frightening than all of that, Mr. Scamander?”

In the silence Tina’s question drops as fast as an anchor to the ocean floor. Newt stares at the window, then at the wall, then at the ceiling. The room is nice, he thinks: doesn’t smell like cleaning solutions, but like magical ingredients and experimental potions, drifting in from another room. Colors are muted but pleasing. He catalogues everything just because he doesn’t want to look at Theseus.

“I don’t know what’s frightening about me,” Theseus says. 

Newt jerks around to look at Theseus. His brother’s posture is defeated: shoulders slumped and eyes half-lidded and head bent. “You don’t know?” he says, feeling uncharacteristically sharp. It’s his turn to show some teeth. “You don’t know how war hero Theseus Scamander might be frightening?”

“Oh,” Theseus says. 

“I went around the world three times and I’ll still never be good enough for you, will I?” Newt asks. He doesn’t usually speak so bluntly about things like this but maybe he learned something from watching his friends dance around their feelings last year. When it’s important— “I’m still just your odd little brother who got Sorted into Hufflepuff because he wasn’t brave enough to be a Gryffindor.”

Theseus’ brows furrow. “Newt. I don’t think you’re odd.”

Newt feels the hot, high burn of resentment. “You told me I was.”

“When?” Theseus demands. His voice is rising—anger, Newt knows, but he’s not baring his throat anymore, emboldened by his own anger and by Tina at his back. “When would I have said anything like that to you?”

“Our entire childhood!” Newt shouts. “Because I wouldn’t stop talking to the swans, tried to adopt a baby Hippogriff, ended up a Hufflepuff, played Chaser all wrong, got expelled…what about me didn’t you think was odd? And then I grew up and you still think I'm odd because I go out looking for creatures and try to help them instead of hunting them or containing them and that's not good enough, I'll never be good enough for you!” 

He’s vaguely aware that he might be crying, a little. His hands are fists in his lap. He’s shaking. He can’t remember the last time he was this angry. Newt makes a profession out of level-headedness, out of never being rattled by anything. A magizoologist can’t afford to be anything but cool, no matter how frightening or enraging the world around him is. This…he can’t avoid being so upset. 

“Newt. I’m proud of you,” Theseus says. 

Newt’s entire thought process crashes into itself. “What?”

Theseus stares at him, painfully sincere. “I couldn’t be prouder of everything you’ve done. You kept going back to the pond after that swan bit you so hard you bled. You made friends with the whole herd of Hippogriffs. That hat barely touched your bloody head before it was screaming about you being the best Hufflepuff of all time. You played Quidditch and I know you hate heights. You got them to let you keep your wand when they expelled you.”

Tina’s hand is on Newt’s back, between his shoulder blades, steadying him. He pulls himself together. “You told me—”

“I was a stupid kid!” Theseus shakes his head and looks out the window. “Doesn’t make it right, Merlin knows I could have done a damn sight better by you. You know that I tell people that I’m Newt Scamander’s brother now, right? They don’t know me anymore. They know you.”

“Oh,” Newt says. 

“I read your book cover to cover,” Theseus says. “I almost went looking for you when I found out that you went hunting for a Lethifold of all things. Ministry of Magic quintuple-X classification!”

“They aren’t too terrible, if you’re awake,” Newt says automatically. “Quite dangerous to the unwary, but if you’re handy with a Patronus Charm—”

Theseus laughs in apparent disbelief. “Merlin, Newt, do you even hear yourself? I’d run away screaming like a child if I was confronted with a Lethifold!”

Newt certainly feels like a child right now. “Really?”

“You should have been in Gryffindor instead of me,” Theseus says seriously. “You may just be the bravest wizard in the world.”

“…you really think that?”

Theseus nods. 

Well, if Newt wasn’t a sobbing mess beforehand, he is now. He sounds like a giant caterpillar deprived of food—the giant caterpillars are native to an island off the coast of England; unusually, they never move past the larval stage—and is so embarrassed he wishes to collapse through the floor and keep sinking. Tina makes soothing noises at him, and even if he knows what she’s doing they work. 

Theseus looks traumatized. This is a man who’s been in trenches, who was an Auror, who’s done and seen Merlin only knows how many terrible and dangerous things, and it’s the first time Newt has ever seen him crack. Newt has to run through about six people’s worth of facial expressions before he finds one that approximates: this is nearly the same face Tina makes when Queenie is upset. Oh: he doesn’t have many recollections of this because he only knows one other person with a sibling.

“Say something!” Tina hisses at Theseus. 

Apparently an inability to handle delicate situations runs in the family because Theseus only stammers. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Newt says, sniffling. He rubs his eyes quickly. This is getting them nowhere fast. “I shouldn’t have even—”

“Newt,” Theseus says. “It’s quite clear that I’ve spent far too long not listening to you at all.”

“Well, I’m proud of you for figuring that out at least,” Tina tells him dryly. “Even if you do seem like you’re the most oblivious, bullheaded man in the world.”

Theseus casts her a resigned expression. “Welcome to the Scamander family.”

Newt smiles sideways at Tina. “I don’t think Theseus is quite as bad as Percival.”

“…never let them into the same room together,” Tina says. She stares off into the distance with a look of quiet horror on her face. 

“Wait—Percival? As in Percival Graves?” There’s a distinct look of hero-worship on Theseus’ face. “You’re on a first-name basis with him? I knew you absconded together, but I didn’t expect that you’d be friends!”

“Theseus, if you’re willing to listen…” Newt says, “…I think I have a lot to tell you.”

Briskly, Theseus rises to his feet. “And I think you shouldn’t be telling it on an empty stomach. Let me take you two out to dinner and I’ll hear the whole bloody story.”

Newt and Tina follow Theseus out of the house. Tina sticks by Newt’s side, though she’s a touch less prickly toward Theseus now. Newt still feels like he’s on shaky ground, but—when Pickett comes out of his pocket at the dinner table, Theseus greets him with delight, not disdain. He listens intently to the whole story of last year’s adventure, and to the stories of Newt’s travels before that, and how Newt met Jacob, and how Newt got Frank the Thunderbird. It’s so much attention that Newt feels a bit overwhelmed, but he likes it. Theseus is listening to him. For a moment, Newt is important. He’s everything he ever wanted to be, a bold adventurer in a bright blue coat who fears nobody and nothing, who’ll do anything under the sun—even, when pressed, talk to his brother.

**Author's Note:**

> The giant caterpillars Newt mentions—those deserve special mention, because they are inspired by an episode from one of my very favorite books: [_Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat) Brave Shrew_](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2192340.Nurk), by Ursula Vernon. It’s a story about…exactly what it says on the tin. I love that book so much that when I went back to the library where I first read it and found out that I was the ONLY person to have EVER checked it out in the entire time it had been in the library, I bought it. Because what else was I going to do? 
> 
> The SINGLE weirdest thing researched for this or any fic: [the history of blood pressure measurements.](https://blog.withings.com/2014/05/21/the-history-of-blood-pressure/) So I could describe Newt’s blood pressure rising.
> 
> What the fuck is wrong with me.


End file.
